“Ughh.... What the hell??” Raif groaned as he woke up, a sharp pain jabbing him in the lower back. Sitting up he looked around finding himself sitting on the ground in what appeared to be a lightly forested area with a path running through it. Standing up quickly, Raif stared around in surprise trying to get his bearings before his training kicked in. An icy calm came over him and he quickly ensured there were no immediate threats before assessing his situation. The first thing he noticed other than the obvious fact that he wasn't in his bed in the apartment anymore, was that he was mostly naked and barefoot with nothing on but the pair of boxer briefs he stripped down to the night before. Second and something he was quite thankful for was the temperature was moderate, neither particularly hot or cold so modesty aside the lack of clothing wasn't important other than his bare feet unless he miraculously stumbled upon a group of hit chicks, which given his luck seemed inevitable. A single hot female, that he could handle and would like because the embarrassment would be mutual and he might even be able to get lucky, this had to be a dream after all and dream sex is better than no sex. But no, given his luck he expected a large group of fully dressed hot women to appear any minute now. In a group they would all feel comfortable and start giggling and it wouldn't be long before they were suggesting he wear some of their clothing or something equally mortifying. Realizing he was distracted he focused again because there were other alternatives that could be much worse.
Looking around he noticed that the path he was next to appeared to dwindle in one direction and widen in the other almost as though he was near the point of the paths origin. Putting off the obvious questions about how in the hell he had appeared in this place instead of waking up in his bed like he expected, Raif looked around for a moment more before walking over and grabbing a thick, reasonably sturdy looking branch on the ground he could use to defend himself in needed. Shrugging he began to follow the path moving slowly with his head on a swivel, ready to take cover behind some of the nearby trees or defend himself if needed.
After half a kilometer or so he noticed the path was curving and could see a thin, light gray stream of smoke rising above the occasional treetop and moved off the path to circle around. The smoke wasn't dark enough to be a large fire as live trees produce dark heavy smoke, and there wasn't enough for a grass fire so he assumed it was man-made. Not trusting anything about his new environment he decided to scout the situation out before approaching.
A few moments later, his feet beginning to hurt from stepping on rocks, sticks, roots, and other less than comfortable surfaces, Raif was definitely wishing he had his shoes with him, but no point in bitching about what he couldn't change. Moving further off the path and picking his steps carefully so as to not hurt his feet any worse, Raif realized the smoke was coming from a small campsite surrounded by the occasional tree and bush in a small clearing. A man in an emerald green cloak was sitting by the fire with what appeared to be a large pile of books next to him, sitting on a log in front of the fire with his head down while he carved on a branch similar to the one Raif held.
Breathing a sigh of relief that it wasn't a gaggle of hot chicks he began moving as quietly as possible and keeping low to the ground as he slowly moved between trees, circling the campsite to get behind the man. For his part the man appeared to be carving on a small branch with what looked like a well maintained steel knife, and hadn't appeared to notice Raif yet. Moving as close as he could without revealing himself and completely breaking from cover Raif was able to see what appeared to be a bow next to the man, along with a small sword that also appeared to be steel like the knife. The man was using his right hand to carve with the knife so Raif made a note that he was most likely right-handed.
Deciding the bow was the bigger threat, and hoping he would be able to defend himself if attacked he decided to low crawl as quietly as he could towards to campsite, before moving into a range he was confident he could strike from in case the stranger decided to bring the bow to bear on him. He didn't think for a moment his stick would hold out long against the man's sword, but it was better than nothing, and he had nothing worth attacking for so he hoped it wouldn't come to hostilities anyway.
He didn't really know jack shit about archery, it was on the damn list but pretty far down, so he had to think about how he would fire one. He was right hand dominant when it came to swinging a bat and things like that, and realized it felt awkward to even mime drawing a bow with his left hand so he assumed he would draw with his right hand. He figured that meant it would be better to approach from the dominant side since the man would have to fully turn around to draw on him as he approached which might give him an extra second to close the distance. Raif dropped low to the ground and began slowly crawling as quietly as he could manage, mentally cursing his lack of clothing the entire way. He hated low crawling in training, and that had been fully clothed. He did take a moment to thank god or his dream self that this wasn't a pine tree forest because these leaves and sticks were bad enough, but he had the feeling pine needles would get in some really uncomfortable places...
Once he was within 30 meters of the campsite he decided he was close enough to be able to dash in and attack if the man reached for his weapons, but far enough away to not appear hostile himself. He doubted seeing another man in boxer briefs from 30 meters away holding a stick would be much of a threat to the other man, but didn't feel like getting himself killed being careless. Besides, nobody wants to fight a naked man, maybe he better lose the boxers too? No. No. Definitely not, that sounded like a good way to get shot.
Taking a deep breath, Raif stood up and braced himself to charge if needed before he called out to the man at the campsite, “Hello Sir, do you mind if I approach and trouble you with some questions?”
Without looking up, the other man huffed out a laugh and replied, “Of course, why else do you think i'm sitting here? Foolish boy, I was wondering if you were planning on introducing yourself or simply sneaking up to attack me. Truth be told I was actually hoping for the latter just to spice things up a little bit, it isn't very often I get to end someone's tutorial before they get to the island after all.”
Well shit, Raif gave a small sigh of relief. That was an enormous amount of stress and effort for nothing thought Raif, better safe than sorry though he thought. At least he wasn't going to try fitting in with the resident porcupines in the immediate future. Raif approached the campsite, once more regretting his lack of clothing, but then again who actually sleeps in their clothes given the choice? Hell half the time he truly did sleep naked, and pajamas were for losers. Thinking about it now he wondered how he would have handled this situation if he had been wearing some ridiculous cartoon pajamas, nope he would have stripped down to his boxer briefs so he felt pretty good about it. He did feel a little foolish for having been noticed, but wasn't sure he would have approached the situation any differently if given the chance.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Done with his internal musings and coming up to the campsite he thanked the man and took a seat across the fire on an opposing log before introducing himself. “I'm Raif, thanks for sharing your camp with me. You said you were here for me, did you mean me specifically or are there others you are waiting on as well, and what did you mean by tutorial?”
“OK ok, one question at a time please and of course there are others, what do you think you are special or perhaps some type of hero in a story or something?” The man looked up as he replied and rolled his eyes. “No, I'm here to provide direction to travelers such as yourself, because Guardians tend to be too damn uppity to interact directly with their wards. You may call me John, but first please do us both a favor and put some clothes on.” So saying John reached into his pack and tossed a pair of brown pants and long sleeved shirt at him.
“Thanks!” Raif replied and quickly pulled the clothing on, before starting to sit back down. Yup, definitely glad I'm not naked he thought, I can handle someone loaning me clothes, but borrowing underwear sounds like a good way to get crabs... At least now the log wasn't digging into his butt cheeks and thighs anymore. He wasn't too happy about running around in bare feet either, but he'd take what he could get. Of course as soon as he finished that thought a thick pair of woolen socks and some leather boots landed on the ground next to him as well, so he quickly wiped off his feet and put those on as well before letting out a relieved sigh, surprised the boots fit.
“Thanks for the clothes, I really wasn't digging being practically naked in the woods even if this is one hell of a dream! But what did you mean when you mentioned a Guardi-.” Raif started to reply before being cut off.
“Yes, yes, save your questions and I'll explain. Much quicker this way, and then I can get back to work on my own skills.” John interrupted before pointing at the branch he had been working on. As Raif looked at the branch from up closer he noticed the man was apparently working on carving another bow, and underneath the cloak he could make out that the man had on deep green scaled leather armor which seemed to scream danger even though whatever the leather came from was clearly dead and gone. Clearly this guy was much more dangerous than he had first appeared so Raif followed his instincts and made the decision to shut the hell up and listen.
Grunting John nodded at Raif's apparent attentiveness “Good! Based on your approach, and apparent awareness it seems like you may actually be helpful to your Guardian.”
“The truth of the matter is that you are currently dreaming, however this isn't a normal dream. You have probably already wondered as much, but as I'm sure crawling towards me in your skivvies has already shown, you can absolutely feel pain. In fact you can die just as easily here as you can in real life. If you do so you will wake up and return to your world potentially missing out on the opportunity to obtain incredible personal strength, and the skills and knowledge that will allow you to hold enormous influence back in your world. You are here for a reason after all, most likely because you fit the mold of someone who wanted to learn true self sufficiency in addition to showing the capability to lead others.” explained John.
“Now I don't know or care about whatever theological drivel you believe on your world, and I'm not sitting here to hold a debate so you can believe what you want. The fact is your world, my world, and many others are created by a being or multiple beings of reportedly unfathomable power who naturally don't give much of a shit about the life that develops on them excepting that said life doesn't screw up their work” continued John.
Seeing the rebuttal in Raif's eyes, John smiled and continued “I truly don't care about your beliefs Raif and won't argue with you, what's important is to understand that you are here because your Guardian sent you, and there is no such thing as a free lunch. You see these Guardians are the ones who watch over the various worlds and actually do care about the life developing on their planets. As far as I know every world with life has their own Guardian and they vary from world to world. The primary purpose of the world's Guardian is to maintain balance and prevent major damage to a planet, however they also like to protect and nurture sentient life on the planet for unknown reasons. I personally believe they do it for entertainment, but that is just my cynicism showing. As it happens, sentient life comes in a wide variety of forms and fashions with some being considerably more volatile than others.”
“Most of the travelers such as yourself hail from worlds that have embraced technology. They have through some form or fashion, managed to harness an energy source and created their civilization around that energy source, constantly advancing until they develop the capacity to truly damage their own planet and likely destroy themselves. Somewhere around this point is when the Guardian will usually step in and change how that energy works on their planet in order to prevent true catastrophe from striking. The problem with this is that history has shown the majority of civilizations will collapse when the science that powers their technology is rendered inert. Therefore the reason you are here is because nobody likes it when their toys break, especially nearly omnipotent beings like Guardians.”
Raif continued to listen despite the numerous budding questions and growing sense of disbelief he felt as John continued. “All of this brings us to this world. You see eons ago the Guardians decided they wanted a fail-safe that would allow their civilizations to continue to grow in a manner that didn't threaten the balance while also preventing the civilization from damaging the planet. To that end a contest was held to find a solution, although I don't really know the details I do know that this world was ultimately selected. This world was selected because it provides the means to gain extraordinary personal strength, prevents monopolies on resources and learning, allows opportunities for conflict management, and isn't technology based, all of which allows for a healthy natural balance and an infallible civilization. You see in my world and the worlds that have since been modeled after it, personal strength is gained through individual effort and learning how to do things yourself. This has led to our civilization being built around self-sufficiency which greatly reduces power mongering and therefore conflict. While higher tiered resources may be rare, they are impossible to trade or hoard for slightly more complicated reasons. On top of that the basic ones replenish themselves overnight which greatly reduces conflict over resources as there is plenty to go around for those who are too risk adverse to attempt to get the higher tiered rare ones. Additionally our world has several towers filled with challenges, powerful monsters, and those higher tiered rare resources which allow the more fool hardy members of our civilization to go far beyond the rest of us, in exchange for inordinate personal risk. It is through our basic world that our civilization flourishes, and through the towers that our more extraordinary individuals flourish.”
“As I mentioned earlier you are here for a reason, that reason is to learn as much as possible before you either die and reawaken in your world, or one hundred days has gone by. When you do return you will re-pay your Guardian for their benevolence and help lead your people through the coming cataclysm when the natural laws of your world are adjusted. The fact that you are here actually means your world has reached the point where self-destruction is imminent and your world's Guardian has decided to shape your world like mine, but is concerned that your species will go extinct without the advantage of having a small portion of your species population to learn how to succeed in the new environment first.” John continued.
“So with that said, now is your chance to ask questions but think carefully because you only have time for a few before I send you on your way. I try not to have more than one traveler here a time to prevent conflict.” John finished.